Luke 2: Caesar and the Innkeeper

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0:00 I was like going through Kendall and I were going through what would we talk about with kids, you know, then they go, they have a little lesson where they expand on this idea with them back there and we were thinking through what we would do for Advent. I was like, well, let's just do each of the people in the story, you know, and I was like, we'll do Mary first because you get here first and then Joseph because then we'll do the innkeeper, you know, it's the innkeeper. That's kind of fun. And I don't know if you, when last time you read carefully all the accounts of Christmas,

0:36 they're all very short, shorter than you'd think. John of course doesn't have one. Matthew talks about before stuff, but then it's like when it's time for him to be born, he's just born. It doesn't really tell the story. Luke tells the story, which is why we always read Luke too, but he doesn't mention an innkeeper. Like, and the innkeeper closed the door in their face and said, go to, there's no room for you in this inn, right? So I like reading the story. There's actually no innkeeper mentioned, right?

1:07 We just made up the innkeeper. There is no innkeeper mentioned. I said, Kendall, good, build a children's lesson on a fictitious character we made up out of the Bible. Good luck. I'm sure it's wonderful. Yeah, I'll show you, figure it out. Let's pray, and then we'll look at our fictitious character for the morning. Hey Lord, thanks for being here with us. We have come because we are yours, and we are yours because you have loved us.

1:39 So love us this morning. Remind us of the goodness of your power, your provision, your protection, your plan in our lives and in the lives of the people around us and catch us up into your story this morning. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Okay, so I am thinking about Luke chapter two just because it gets us the closest. Luke chapter two. And we talked about this a couple of weeks ago.

2:10 It has the most in depth story, probably because Luke got some information from Mary, and she of course had first-hand knowledge of the story. Matthew probably didn't. Mark certainly didn't. We think Mark was like a secondary disciple. And Luke, we know Luke wasn't there either, so he probably got it from Mary. Luke chapter two there, and it says, in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered, and this was the first registration when Quiranius

2:45 was governor of Syria. It's funny how many people know the names of these guys, right? How many other Roman emperors do you know by name? Maybe a couple, how many Roman governors do you know by name? I'm guessing none. I don't know any other Roman governors. I looked up this morning, Quiranius is kind of like, what do we know about the guy? It's a pretty successful soldier. Led a lot of stuff on the battlefield. They put him in a couple of different places.

3:17 Actually, it's a little bit scandalous because they do have record of this registration, this new tax thing that Caesar Augustus put out, but they have trouble lining it up with when Quiranius started his governorship in Syria. It looks like maybe he started his governorship in 6 A.D., which of course is a little bit late for the birth of Jesus. And then the tax thing is like in the nebulous time period.

3:49 So it looks like there's like maybe he was there overseeing things, people interpret that when he was governor is a translation. The Greek could just as equally be translated while he was governing, while he was looking over, but maybe he wasn't in the official position because they know he was there ahead of time. So it's interesting, remember that we're getting Mary's recollection after the fact about what happened, but also remember what Luke is trying to do. Look back all the way at the beginning of Luke's gospel. He says, inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile the narrative of the things that

4:25 have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning where eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to us also having followed all things closely for some time passed to write an orderly account for you, most excellent theophilus. Luke is intentionally going, I want to give you an orderly account of what happened. And so he includes these names. It's how you would date things in ancient Near East, right?

4:58 Because people don't all share the same numerical calendar, like we've gone back and dated AD BC and got the numbers where we want them. But that wasn't the case all across the world, but they would mark things by when people were in charge. When Caesar Augustus was Caesar and when Quiranius was governor, then we had this tax thing. He's locating Jesus in the history of the world, right? And so it's worth noting for me a little bit here as we think about this birth of Jesus,

5:31 these two characters, I want to contrast kind of Caesar Augustus and our innkeeper whom we assume there was an innkeeper, right? But think about first about Caesar Augustus, kind of a big shot. I didn't know this, but he was the adopted son of Julius Caesar. Interesting. Julius called himself divine Julius. He wanted people to think of him as Godlike.

6:04 So Caesar Augustus was the first Caesar to call himself the son of God. Isn't that funny? He wanted people to call him the son of God. He started to put an inscription on coins. The big thing about Caesar Augustus is he remade all the Roman roads. So Rome governed like the known world, right? There was a series of empire builders in the ancient Near East and you can chronicle them through the story of the Old Testament.

6:35 If you go through the Persians, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, and they all are slowly taking over each other. But Rome is the emperor to end all emperors, right? It is the kingdom to end all kingdoms. They circumnavigate the Mediterranean. They go all the way around the Mediterranean, not to mention Asia Minor and lower Europe, right? They finally get sacked by the barbarians, the crazies up in the north that they don't pay attention to come down and sack them. But the way they built that is first they have significant army capacity and then they

7:09 figure out how to solidify money. They figure out solidify money. Part of the way they do that Caesar Augustus is really good at this. He redoes all the roads. So now they've got paved roads. They can get big armies around and they can get taxes back to them. So Caesar Augustus then with the taxes refigured and things like registration, how to count and demand taxes. Remember I talked a couple of weeks ago about how a tax collector would bid for the opportunity

7:42 to be a tax collector. He would say to Quiranias, I bet I can collect this much for you. With Caesar Augustus, now Quiranias knows how many people are in Matthew the tax collector's region and can judge against his bid how much he ought to be able to get him. So they can demand even more. So with Caesar Augustus, they get really good at taxes and they got roads to bring them back. Now they've got armies that not only have roads to walk on but good armor and food because they've got all this money.

8:13 So under Caesar Augustus, they conquer way more. So then if you start to look at Caesar Augustus, he's got this large empire. He's like reaching the pinnacle. They start to call this the period of Caesar Augustus the Pax Romana, the piece of Rome. We're all of war stop. Why? Because everybody's subjugated to the Son of God. He starts erecting statues to himself of perfect proportions. He was the first guy to think of, hey, I'm in my late 40s but let's build a statue of

8:46 me that's in my 20s. Because most people are never going to meet me. It's a big place. They look, that's the Son of God right there. He builds a statue of himself and he doesn't put shoes on himself. The only people who would get barefoot statues would be gods from Mount Olympus and the son of God, Caesar Augustus. He'd had this big shield with all of the countries he had conquered on it. He had like a, he would have in this famous statue like the Roman goddess Venus who was

9:17 supposed to be his mother to show that he was born from the gods. Caesar Augustus decides he wants more money and demands that all of the known world be counted in somewhere on the wrong side of the desert on the other side of the Mediterranean. Some little betrothed couple in the middle and the end of their pregnancy asked to walk for three days and find no room for themselves in the inn. But Caesar Augustus knows nothing of Mary and Joseph and cares nothing for Mary and

9:53 Joseph. I was thinking about this just a little bit more like how huge Caesar Augustus was in the day, right? The known world. And I was like cataloging it with the other day I was thinking about, I don't remember how me and the kids got talking about Elon Musk. Maybe you heard of him, right?

10:26 Sometimes I like the kids will watch this show, this cartoon, Phineas and Ferb. Has anybody ever seen it? I think it's funny. It's smart. It's a little bit mindless but it's kind of clever. And I can imagine like in my head is a video, like an image of how Phineas and Ferb would imagine the wealthiest person in the world on a yacht and that's my image of Elon Musk,

10:56 like boating around the world. Almost kind of like, he plays the role of this is what you would imagine. And the other day I was talking with the kids about Elon Musk and thinking about how much money he has and how much influence and power and reach he has. And like just amazed at how he built that in what? Thirty years maybe?

11:26 And you can cut, you can put him in Bezos in the same boat, right? They have their own boats I'm sure. But you can think of them in similar categories, right? You can read the story of how Bezos started. And in the span of time, I think part of the reason that it's like kind of starting to blow my mind a little bit is because I can watch career arcs and start to look at mine and go, in a period of time, the same amount of time that the rest of us had.

12:01 They built all this, right? Caesar Augustus lived, you know, I counted maybe 70 years. And if he like started in his 20s and then declined in his late 60s, early 70s, you give him 45 years of prime activity. In 45 years, Caesar Augustus governed the Pax Romana, orchestrated the known world, collected

12:34 taxes from all people that any army could reach, walked on roads that he made and brought money back to him. You don't get bigger, more important, more powerful in the world than Caesar Augustus, right? Okay. Let's look at our fictitious character, Luke chapter 2. So, Aquarius who talked about that, governor of Syria, verse 3, and all went to be registered

13:08 because Caesar Augustus wanted a better account to make some more money, each to his own town. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth to Judea to the city of David. It's probably actually physically up, not geographically up, it's probably down, it's probably south, but he's going uphill. Yeah. So, he goes up. And everything in the scriptures, I've said this before, but if you read about them going up in the story of scripture, something important is about to happen.

13:39 They always go up to Sinai, they go up to Jerusalem, they go up to Horeb, whenever they're going up, something important is about to happen. And so, Joseph and Mary go up to Bethlehem geographically or physically. Okay. To the city of David, which is called Bethlehem because he was of the house and lineage of David to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child.

14:11 And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. They went up to Bethlehem, which is the seat of the city of David, and famously not a big place. Bethlehem is not a big place. There's maybe a couple hundred, maybe several hundred people there, tops. And then when Caesar Augustus, off in Rome, would like better taxes, and all the people who have descended from the line of David have to come back, there's not enough fruit.

14:47 And so, David to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, was with child. Okay. Verse 7. Then she gave birth to her firstborn, a son, and wrapped them in swaddling clothes and laid them in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn. I mean, for all we know, Mary and Joseph were polite, and the innkeeper was like, oh, we can make room. And they're like, no, no, it's no big deal. We'll just go stay with the animals. Right? It doesn't even say someone turned them out. Right?

15:17 And so, but you, there is like, most people think reasonably. Bethlem doesn't have like an inn like you and I think of. It's not like, you know, you want to check into the motel, or you didn't make the reservation, or all the rooms are booked. It's more like you go around to family relations, and you try and find someone who can put you up in a guest room. Sometimes actually, later in Luke, when Jesus is telling the disciples to go ahead of him

15:50 into Jerusalem and find the guy with the donkey and ask them about the room that's been prepared for the Passover, the word, the Greek word they use there to ask the guy about the room is the same word that's translated in here. It's translated guest room later. So in the context, it can be translated different ways. And consistently, it's translated in here, which I feel like is probably misleading. It's more like they couldn't find anybody who had an extra room in their house.

16:21 In David wasn't either close enough, or I mean, not David. Joseph wasn't either close enough or important enough to get someone to save one for him. So when they got there, there was no place for them to go. So they just go to the animals. If you can imagine, there's definitely some people who they knocked on the door and they set them aside, right? Go someplace else.

16:52 Like, we don't have a spot for you here. Go someplace else. We don't have a spot for you here. This spot is probably then this room where they are is usually attached on the side of the house. So it's not like they went off on their own somewhere. This is probably family animals inside of town still.

17:22 It's like a lean-to on the side. Some even have it like they have a one big room house with a lower area where the animals are, but it's all in one big room. So people interpret it differently, but it's definitely not they're off on their own somewhere else, right? And so then the interesting thing for me is like Mary and Joseph are over there, and they're there because Caesar Augustus on the other side of the desert, on the other

17:53 side of the Mediterranean, where all roads lead, required them to go so he could make some more money. He has no notion that Mary and Joseph are there, but also like Bethlehem goes on. And maybe even people in the same house go on with whatever is happening at that time when they're dealing with this overlord that wants more taxes. And Mary and Joseph over there birth the Savior of the world.

18:30 And the innkeeper or whoever's house they're like leaned up against seems to have about as much awareness of what God is doing in the world as Caesar Augustus. And it's like right on his doorstep. Bummer, right?

19:06 For both of them that they missed it. I don't know if it would have done them much good in the moment. I don't know, you know, the people who did catch it, the shepherds, I don't know what it really, but it sure would be cool looking back to have known they were in my house. They paid me taxes to be caught up in the story of God.

19:41 I wonder why it would be cool. I was thinking about this innkeeper. Remember, I don't know if you've seen the little video of the kid, the British kid who's very excited because he gets to be door holder number three. Have you seen this little video meme that's going around? You have to look it up. It's hilarious. He's in the back of the seat. His mom's looking at him. Has anybody seen this? Right. Okay, I'm not alone.

20:11 It's hilarious. The mom is driving the car. The kids in the back seat. He's got a little British accent. He's all excited because he's got a classic part, classic part in the nativity scene. He's all excited. And she asks him, are you Joseph? No. Are you one of the shepherds? No. Are you a wise man? No. Are you a sheep? No. Who are you? Door holder number three. He's like, door holder number three. Classic. I'm going to slam it in their face.

20:41 He's all excited. You know? You know, we make this idea, but so I'm like, I've been thinking about like, what do they miss? What is door holder number three miss? What is Cesar Augustus miss? And I was thinking about door holder. And that's how we got to the psalm that Brian started us off with this morning.

21:13 Let me read it here. How lovely is your dwelling place. Oh, Lord of hosts, my soul longs. Yes, faints for the courts of the Lord, my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God. Even the sparrow finds a home and the swallow a nest for herself where she may lay her young at your altars. Oh, Lord of hosts, my king and my God. Blessed are those who dwell in your house ever singing your plays, praise.

21:47 Blessed are those whose strength is in you in whose heart are the highways to Zion. Such a cool line. And blessed are those in whose heart are the highways to Zion. As they go through the valley of Baca, they make it a place of springs. The early rain also covers it with pools and they go from strength to strength. Each one appears before God in Zion. The valley of Baca would be a dry place. And as the people who hope in the Lord walk through the dry places, springs come up because

22:22 water is drawn to them. And they move from strength to strength. Oh, Lord God of hosts, hear our prayer. Give ear, O God of Jacob. Behold our shield, O God. Look on the face of your anointed. Verse 10. A day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness. For the Lord God is a son and shield. The Lord bestows favor and honor.

22:56 No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly. O Lord of hosts, blessed is the one who trusts in you. Caesar Augustus, the great son of God, Pax Romana, all money and roads lead to him, got about 45 years. And then what? And then what does he live in to? He goes into the next thing.

23:28 He goes through old age and frailty and death, hoping in himself as the son of God to deliver to whatever comes next. And the like fictitious innkeeper who closes the door, who's trying to figure out how to navigate family and needs and responsibilities and make a home work with limited resources, different from sea, but all the pressure to whom do they look?

24:00 What help do they have beyond their own? Of course they close the door to the people who come to them because they have limited resources, limited capacity, they've got to protect and preserve and keep. They're not open. But those in the house of the Lord, it says the Lord is a shield and a son. Those who walk in the house of the Lord move from strength to strength.

24:35 The blessing of being in the presence of God is like a thousand days stacked up outside of his presence. The tragedy if the innkeeper and Caesar Augustus miss the story happening in their midst is their capacity for life is dramatically diminished. And their hope for the future is foolish and without power.

25:15 The invitation for me and you in Advent is to remember that whether we are Caesar governing the known world, whether we are in the front of the room with power and resources drawn to us over and over again or are literally unnamed in the back, we can be caught up in the story of God.

25:46 The scripture doesn't tell us whether God whispered in Caesar Augustus's ear, hey, now's the time to redo your taxes. I've got to get Joseph to Bethlehem to fulfill the prophecy. We don't know whether he whispered in the innkeeper's ear. It would be way more dramatic if Jesus were born in a manger. Don't let him in. But we do know whether God initiated the census and the closed door or just leveraged

26:16 them. God was at work in the midst of them. Caesar didn't know it. The innkeeper didn't know it. Joseph and Mary barely took notice of it. They just dealt with what they had in front of them. And so I am confident that wherever you find yourself, whether in inns or palaces, whether holding doors or paying taxes, God is at work in your life now. And you don't have to pay attention or care or even believe, but you might as well.

26:46 Because when you step into the story of God, you get the son and the shield of the God of the universe. You get tangible hope for the future. You get strength into strength for dealing with the problems of the day to day. It's not a requirement that you believe in order for God to work with you, but you might as well. It's a better way to live. And it assures you a future that cannot be broken or disturbed or taken or run away.

27:19 A hope for real in Christmas, in the Christ, who saves you. Let me pray. Hey Lord, give us faith to believe the story of Christmas is for us. More than that, whether we stack up money and power or closed doors to hide what we have, you can use us and you do. And you have a future for us. Set aside and secure. Teach us how to take part in your story, to trust in your provision and protection that

27:57 we might celebrate now in life well lived and that we might celebrate with you forever in the life of the world to come. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.